Lies, damned Lies and Iconography

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24Lies, Damned Lies and Iconography

Anna Gannon

It is now 20 years since the publication of Iconography at the Crossroads, the proceedingsof the Colloquium at Princeton University sponsored by the Index of Christian Art.1 Sincethen, art historians have taken heed of the criticism expressed: Insular Studies in particularhave addressed wider audiences and themes, explored new avenues, many ‘isms’ and‘fragments’, often with enriching results.

In reflecting on how our understanding of early Anglo-Saxon Christian art has sincebeen constructed, on the role that iconography has played in ‘Making Histories’ out ofdisparate images in different media, and how not only the sophistication of scholarship,2

butmore generally the appreciation of the period are flourishing, one can concur that therehas been great progress in our discipline.

However, if iconography can be described as an historical method that provides aformalist approach to exploring and explaining images, as well as their derivation andmeaning within a given cultural context, we have become more aware of diversity andrelativity and, by the same token, also more critical. We may wonder how a strictlyhistorical approach to explain iconography can still be valid. We have come to appreciatethat, then as now, meanings shift and resonate differently in different situations and fordifferent audiences and times. We have also come to realise that occasionally meaning isirretrievable, or has been grossly distorted, perhaps because of the very questions that aresometimes posed. Despite the scepticism of the title, as a practitioner, I believe that icono-graphy is a valid methodological approach, but one whose role should be questioning andopen-ended. In order to remain valid, insightful and engaging, iconographic studiesshould be responsive to other academic approaches and lines of enquiry. It is only bycasting our net wide and refocusing our questioning that we can gain better awareness ofthe complexities of the times and the unstable relationship between images and meaningin the material culture of the period.

My discussion here centres on two geometrical motifs in Insular art which share anEastern derivation: the lozenge and the gammadia. Both take as their starting point aninterest not only in imagery that evokes representations of the sacred conjuring up theHoly Land, but which transports their meaning to a further spiritual level, throughgeometrical symbolism and numerology.3 Both motifs will be seen to take on additionalsignificance and a life of their own. Iconography is called upon not only to charter thesedevelopments in the case of the lozenge, but, in the case of the gammadia, to witness the

1 Cassidy, 19932 See synthesis in Webster, 20123 Richardson, 1984

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total distortion of their original significance. Both case studies show us not only thelimitations and strength of iconography, but especially how relative and serendipitousmeaning is bound to remain.

The great appeal of the Holy Land in early Anglo-Saxon times is witnessed by thefortune of the book De Locis Sanctis which Adomnán of Iona compiled towards the endof the seventh century,4 andwhichwas said by Bede to be based on BishopArculf’s witnessaccount of his travels there.5 As is well known, a copy of this book was presented byAdomnán to King Aldfrith, and then circulated in Northumbria,6 eventually to bereworked by Bede in his own homonymous version some years later, probably between702 and 703.7 Although traditionally commentators have been keen to underline thedidactical intentions of Bede’s reworking of Adomnán’s version in terms of accessibilityof language and as a tool for biblical exegesis,8 O’Loughlin has recently reviewed theprimacy of Adomnán’s sophisticated contribution not only as a scriptural scholar,9 butalso with regard to the purpose of this work.10 In addition to his version of De LocisSanctis, Bede also embedded a description of the places connected with Christ’s Birth,Passion and Resurrection within hisHistoria Ecclesiastica, information which he presentsas faithfully derived from Adomnán’s book, but abridged.11 Here the arrangement ofthese themes differs from that given in his description in the De Locis Sanctis where theaccount, following Adomnán’s, opened with Jerusalem, while the site of Bethlehem andthe connections to Christ’s birth were discussed only in Chapter VII.

Both Adomnán and Bede thoroughly collated Arculf’s account with other knownsources, such as those of Scripture and writings of Augustine, Jerome, Cassiodorus andJosephus, a scholarly approach ultimately directed to solving scriptural ambiguities.However, in Bede’s own words, Adomnán’s work was ‘useful to many, and especially tothose who live very far from the places where the patriarchs and the apostles dwelt, andonly know about them what they have learned from books’,12 hinting that bothintellectually andmystically this workwould have facilitated the undertaking of a spiritualjourney.13 Indeed O’Loughlin suggests that these descriptions of the holy placesfunctioned, not so much as the portrayal of a concrete landscape, but rather as an abstract

4 Meehan, 19585 Bede, HE V.15 (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969: 506)6 Bede, HE V.15 (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969: 508)7 Trent Foley and Holder, 1999: 58 Trent Foley and Holder, 1999: 39 O’Loughlin, 200710 O’Loughlin, 200411 Bede, HE V.16–17 (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969: 508–13)12 Bede, HE V.15: multis utile et maxime illis, qui longius ab eis locis, in quibus patriarchae uel

apostoli erant, secreti ea tantum de his, quae lectione didicerint, norunt (Colgrave andMynors,1969: 508-509)

13 Brown, 2003: 2914 O’Loughlin, 2004: 137, 132. See also Elsner, 1997: 121; Kűhnel, 2006


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religious landscape, an icon, or a lens through which the Holy Land was presented fordevotional purposes.14

Such erudite reworking of an abstract landscape intended to be conjured within thereaders’ mind for pious reflection, alerts us to the relativity of the exercise. The theoreticalframework invoked by Blake Leyerle in considering early pilgrims’ factual accounts oftheir travels to the Holy Land, and her cautionary remark that ‘we make our owngeography in much the same way as we make our own history’,15 are also applicable here.They are particularly pertinent not only when considering the places that Adomnán andBede are describing, but particularly regarding artefacts, which also come to gain signifi-cance only ‘when accorded it by the viewer’,16 an important point to which I shall return.

Of particular interest here are the descriptions of the complex of the Holy Sepulchrein Jerusalem: both Adomnán and Bede supported these by means of diagrams (ultimatelyderived from Arculf), which serve to clarify and anchor the readers’ thoughts in theirvirtual pilgrimage. Particularly in the case of Adomnán’s more detailed sketch,17 one isreminded of the meandering frames of the Evangelists’ symbols / carpet pages of theEchternach Gospels, and above all of Mark’s Imago Leonis,18 magnificently leaping freeof its earthly bounds. The descriptions tell how, in the middle of the domed church of theAnastasis, which is covered in preciousmarbles and surmounted by a gold cross, is Christ’sround tomb (monumentum), hewn from a rock, within which is the sepulchre.We are toldthat the stone that functioned as the door to Christ’s tomb is now split in two pieces: thesmaller one is still in front of the entrance and is used as a quadrangular altar, whilst theother, of similar shape, but larger and covered by linen cloths, is used as an altar in theeast part of the church. The colour of the rock of the tomb and of the sepulchre appearsmixed white and red (ruber utique et al.bus, unde et bicolor; albo et rubicundpermixtus);19 also noted are the marks of the tools on the stone.20

These descriptions and other accounts of the Anastasis complex given by earlypilgrims can be matched against the iconography of some well-known pilgrims’ souvenirsfrom the Holy Land.21 Amongst these, are the lead ampullæ from Palestine held inMonzaand Bobbio,22 an early Byzantine bas-relief now in the Dumbarton Oaks collection,23 and

15 Leyerle, 1996: 12016 Leyerle, 1996: 12017 Adomnán’s is transmitted in the ninth-century manuscript, Vienna: Österrreiches

Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Lat. 458, fol. 4v (Meehan, 1958: facing 47)18 Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 9389, fol. 75v; see Denton, 201219 DLS III (Meehan, 1958: 48); Bede,HEV.16 (Colgrave andMynors, 1969: 510);De Loc. Sanct.

II.2 (Trent Foley and Holder, 1999: 7). See discussion on the symbolism of white as Christ’sdivinity and red as his humanity in Kessler, 2005: 297–306

20 DLS III (Meehan, 1958: 48); De Loc. Sanct. II.2 (Trent Foley and Holder, 1999: 7)21 For instance, Weitzmann, 197422 The classic study of the ampullæ is Grabar, 1958, but see also Elsner, 1997. Lambert and

Pedmonte Demeglio, 1994 provide a full catalogue and comprehensive bibliography of allextant ampullæ.



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the reliquary box, also from Palestine, originally in the Sancta Sanctorum in the Lateran.24

Although there is virtually nomaterial evidence of any similar artefacts fromAnglo-SaxonEngland, very many textual sources,25 as well as creative artistic responses, bear witnessnot only to an active movement of religiously-charged objects from the Mediterraneanworld, but also to deep devotion, vivid intellectual curiosity and keen visual engagementwith early Christian art.26

The greatest assemblage of the tin and lead alloy Palestinian ampullæ, said to havebeen given by Pope Gregory the Great to Queen Theodolinda of the Lombards (c.570–628),27 is shared between Monza and Bobbio, royal and monastic Lombard centres.28

Elsner discusses how it is not only the ‘content’ (oil from the holy places) that would havemade the relics special, but the inscriptions and the varied iconography that would alsohave emphasised the connection to each event and place in the Holy Land and literallybrought it home.29 A number of these, as is well known, depict various details from theChurch of the Anastasis and the tomb of Christ, such as the large golden cross on theroof.30

On Monza ampulla no. 5 (Fig. 24.1),31 through the open lattice-work grilles to thetomb, which are in turn framed by columns, the stone is visible, represented in perspective,tilted, to testify to the events at the Resurrection. At the sides of the building, an angeladdresses the two Women at the Sepulchre. Above the tomb, the few letters remaining ofthe original Greek inscription allow the reading ‘Christ is resurrected’.32 As King haspersuasively argued,33 in the Insular world the lozenge shape of the tilted stone inperspective appears to become short-hand for signifying the Resurrection, the leitmotif ofthe Book of Kells,34 and much Irish stone sculpture. The Lindisfarne Gospels too uselozenges extensively and imaginatively:35 for instance, the background of the cross carpet23 First published Underwood 1950: 91–93, illus. 3924 Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary, Città del Vaticano, Musei della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana25 See e.g. the gifts of Pope Gregory described in Bede,HE I.29, 32 (Colgrave and Mynors, 1969:

104, 110)26 Thacker, 2007 discusses the view from Rome; for the Anglo-Saxon artistic reception and

re-elaboration, see G. Henderson, 1999: 56–121; Hawkes, 2007a: 21–31; for the coinage, seeGannon, 2011

27 For an historical re-assessment of the question, see Martindale, 199728 Elsner, 1997: 118–23. Bobbio was founded by Columbanus in 614 on land given by the

newly-converted King Agilulf, husband of Theodolinda29 Elsner, 1997: 12130 Wilkinson, 1971: 174 offers a diagram31 Grabar, 1958: 22–23; pl. 1132 A similar, albeit fragmentary ampulla is in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, Washington, DC

(BZ.1948.18). On this, the stone is still represented in perspective as a lozenge, but flat, as analtar, with a ?lamp on a stand resting on it. On both ampullæ the inscription announces theresurrection of Christ.

33 King, 2001, where other scholarly interpretations are also discussed34 Dublin: Trinity College Library, MS 5835 London: BL, Cotton MS Nero D.IV


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page introducing Luke’s Gospel (fol. 138b) is formed by an intarsia pattern exclusivelymade up of differently coloured and shaped lozenges. The extended arms of the centralGreek cross ‘point’ to four large yellow lozenges, guiding the eyes to perceive cross shapesin the background. One can also consider how the composition on the so-called ‘LastJudgement Ivory’,36 dated to the turn of the ninth century,37 arranges the coffins openingat the call of the trumpets at the Last Judgement in a diamond shape, signalling that thisis indeed the Resurrection of the Dead.

Another related representation of the tomb of Christ and of the stone as a lozenge isseen on a relief found on a fragment of a chancel screen from Syria or Northern Palestine,dated to the late-sixth / seventh century (Fig. 24.2).38 Underwood was the first to discussit in relation to the ampullæ, and another representation of the Women at the Tomb inSant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, and to interpret the rhomboid shape shown to theleft of the cross as the rolled-off cover to the tomb, shown in perspective. He thought thecentral rectangular shape represented the sepulchre.39 I shall return to this fragment later.

36 V&A inv. no. 253-186737 Discussed by Boulton, above: 286–8938 Dumbarton Oaks collection, Washington, DC (Vikan, 1995: 82–86, no. 34)39 Underwood, 1950: 92

Figure 24.1: Tomb of Christ, Monza ampulla no.5 (detail, after King, 2001: fig. 3a)

Figure 24.2: Tomb of Christ, Chancel Screen relief from Syriaor Northern Palestine (after King, 2001: fig. 3b)



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Perception of a charged meaning to the lozenge, as allusive to the Resurrection,40 theWord,41 light,42 harmony in the tetragonus mundus,43 or even, more prosaically, asapotropaic,44 not only directs and enriches our reading of much iconography, but it alsoactively sensitises us to the embedded presence of the shape in so many artefacts. Even onearly Anglo-Saxon coins, the sceattas of the early-eighth century, lozenges feature at thecore of complex crosses whose continuous design is formed by four interlaced knottedtiquetras.45 As I have argued elsewhere, these sophisticated designs can be seen as carpetpages, purposefully forming compositions which are visually ambiguous. Whether theselofty readings could have been transferred to the simpler designs and geometriccompositions of the more common ‘standards’ is debatable—yet occasionally ‘seekinglozenges’ contributes to seeing orderly rather than haphazard compositions,46 whichsuggests that the intended orientation of the design on some sceattas must have beensideways, with a lozenge-shape standard.47

The artistically creative sceattas, which contribute so much to our understanding ofAnglo-Saxon art,48 came to an abrupt end after themiddle of the eighth century, followingvarious coinage reforms in Northumbria, East Anglia, Kent, and especially Mercia.49 Inconsidering the new Anglo-Saxon coins, one is struck by the sudden shift from representa-tional to mainly epigraphic and geometrical types, albeit always preserving high aestheticvalues, particularly in the case of the coinage of King Offa. Even the most cursory glanceat his production, recently beautifully edited and catalogued,50 will reveal how many ofthe designs are arranged around a lozenge, with lettering organised around the shape, andwith mainly cruciform motifs within the field (Fig. 24.3). It is admittedly impossible toargue for any certain religious intention behind the choice of the motif, beyond pointingto the fact that the alternatives to lozenges were cruciform patterns, so it is possible thatlozenges did imply some sacred connotation. Thinking of connections to the Holy Land,it is interesting to consider some of the production of the East Anglian moneyer Oethel-

40 Lewis, 1980: 15041 Richardson, 1996: 20–2542 Richardson, 1984: 3243 O’Reilly, 1998: 8044 As Sue Youngs has noted, images of established iconographies move from being evocative to

being invocative (Youngs, 1999: 293)45 Gannon, 2011: 97–9946 According to the Gestalt Theory as discussed by Pirotte 2001: 203, eyes tend to organise

patterns in the simplest possible manner47 This refers particularly to the baffling secondary ‘Porcupines’, whose reverse design has often

been described as a ‘mixed grill’ of symbols. Abramson (Forthcoming), suggests that simplytilting the orientation of the coin from that of a square standard creates a symmetrical and‘logical’ design within a lozenge (talk to the British Numismatic Society, 22 June 2010)

48 Gannon, 200349 Grierson and Blackburn, 1986: 268–8250 Chick, 2010


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ræd. Three of his issues,51 featuring his name disposed around a lozenge on the reverse,are differentiated by the motifs at its centre: a saltire cross, a rosette, and a bosssurrounded by pellets. The obverses have the name and title of Offa arranged around across on two steps. Two smaller crosses, resting on the steps, are set diagonally at the sidesof the cross: they are generally understood as introducing and ending the inscription,52 yettheir association with a cross on steps recalls the iconography of Golgotha, with Christ’scross flanked by those of the two robbers (Fig. 24.4). It is possible that, as so often inAnglo-Saxon art, the ambiguity is indeed intentional.

On the inscriptions of Offa’s coinage we also often find the letter O in the shape ofa lozenge, as well as the letter A with a forked cross-bar forming a lozenge-space, as alsoencountered in deluxe manuscript production.53 However, these special letter forms arenot exclusively reserved for the name of Offa:54 his moneyers also often used them fortheir own names.55 Whether this was done on account of the particular elegance of thesecharacters, or to allude to the sacrality of religious scripts, or for any other reason, is ofcourse uncertain. Parallels between design compositions on Offa’s coinage andcontemporary jewellery have already been noted, particularly with reference to theTrewhiddle style,56 but it is also interesting to note how lozenges prevail in the vocabularyof ninth-century metalwork, as can be seen from the Pentney hoard of brooches, theStrickland Brooch, and strap-ends, to culminate with the Fuller Brooch.57 One might betempted to state that ‘the lozenge is the new cross’.

To return to the Dumbarton Oaks relief (Fig. 24.2), Underwood considered thepolygonal shape of the building and other details, such as the cross on its apex, asinfluential in relation to much Carolingian manuscript illumination in the context of the

51 Light Coinage of East Anglia, Offa: Types 175–177 (Chick, 2010: 137–38)52 As on Type 174 (Chick, 2010: 137), where they flank a bust of Offa, recalling iconography seen

on sceattas, hence, I would argue, independent of the inscription53 Amongst themany examples, see for instance theNovum Opus page of the Lindisfarne Gospels

(fol. 3) which features both letters, the lozenge shapes being emphasised by colour54 See Chick, 2010: 88, 130, 142–4855 See reverse of Figure 24.3; Chick, 2010: 123–28, 14856 Gannon, 2003:170–7157 Webster and Backhouse, 1991: nos 187, 189, 194, 250–51, 257

Figure 24.3: Sceatta of Offa, moneyer Winoth,Chick Type 213a: ob. (left), rev. (right) (Photo:Chick, 2010; Courtesy Fitzwilliam Museum)

Figure 24.4: Sceatta of Offa, moneyer Oethelred,Chick Type 177b: ob. (left), rev. (right)

(Photo: Chick, 2010; Courtesy Fitzwilliam Museum


In addition to the Roman vision behind the Renovatio of so many of Charlemagne’sambitious endeavours, Elbern also pointed to the Holy Land as the symbolic and spiritualinspiration ultimately behind some Carolingian artistic expressions: not only are thecolumns and cancelli of Christ’s tomb echoed by the bronze railings in the Aachen palatineChapel, and reflected by the ornamentation on the Chalice of St Lebouinus, but also, wefind that regardless of the rich gem encrustation, the shape of the so-called ‘Amulet ofCharlemagne’ harks back to traditional Holy Land ampullæ, with two handles and a shortneck.62 It is pleasing to note here how the gem on the neck of the amulet is in the shapeof a lozenge. Lozenges also occur in much Carolingian art, and the same rich readings asfor their Anglo-Saxon counterparts can be safely applied.63


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fons vitæ.58 Elbern,59 on the other hand, saw the iconography of the tomb of Christ asrepresented on this relief as the inspiration behind the handsome deniers of Charlemagne(and later, of Louis the Pious), which have on the obverse impressive laureate busts ofRoman type with the inscription IMP(erator) AVG(ustus) (Fig. 24.5).60 On the reverse ofthe deniers, surrounded by the inscription XPICTIANA RELIGIO, is a building which isusually described as a ‘tetrastyle temple’.61 However, the DumbartonOaks representationhelps us to understand the perspective better: what we see are actually four columns undera polygonal roof surmounted by a cross, with a larger central cross placed centrallybetween two columns as another evident close point of contact.

58 Underwood, 195059 Elbern, 1997: 163 (see his n. 43 for older bibliography and note of discussion with Philip

Grierson)60 Charlemagne: Class 4 (812–814); Louis the Pious: Class 3 (822–840); Grierson and Blackburn,

1986: 209–10, 216–1761 Grierson and Blackburn, 1986: 209; Coupland, 2005: 224 suggests the building might be the

palace chapel at Aachen or, generally, the ‘Christian Church’62 Elbern, 1997: 155, 162–74; the amulet is illustrated at 165 (Abb.1)63 O’Reilly 1998: 77–80

Figure 24.5: Denier of Louis the Pious, Christiana Religio Type, uncertain mint:ob. (left), rev. (right) (Photo: Courtesy Fitzwilliam Museum)


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64 Sancta Sanctorum Reliquary, Città del Vaticano, Musei della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.For recent discussion and relevant bibliography, see Reudenbach, 2005: 21–26; for illustration,see Kessler and Zacharias, 2000: 54

65 Vikan,1982: 19–2066 As discussed above, see n. 2167 Mount Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine (Belting, 1994: illus. 78); Conti, 1983: 38–4168 Folio 21169 Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurentiana, MS Amiatinus 1, fol. V70 Osborne, 1992: 31571 See e.g. the central curtains of Theoderic’s palace in Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo (Deichmann, 1958:

fig. 108), and on the altar cloths and scenes showing Melchizedek in San Vitale (AngioliniMartinelli, 1997: 238, figs 441–44) and Sant’ Apollinare in Classe (Deichmann, 1958: fig. 407)

72 See the stone slab from Siracusa, Sicily, sixth or seventh century (Pugliese Caratelli, 1982: 276,no. 140); another example (with the cross in a lozenge), believed to have been taken fromConstantinople, is in the crypt of San Marco, Venice (Pugliese Caratelli, 1982: 286)

The final artefact from the Holy Land that I wish to discuss is the Reliquary Box ofthe Sancta Sanctorum, now in the Vatican Museum,64 which will allow me to turn to thegammadia. On the inner part of the reliquary’s lid is a set of five images related to salientepisodes of the life of Christ, culminating with his Resurrection and Ascension. Itsiconography fits into the tradition ofmany ‘pilgrim souvenirs’ from theHoly Land. Indeedits content, stones and earth from holy places, as certified by their eulogiai, makesparticularly poignant its Palestinian origin. The representation of the Resurrection differsin an important detail from those discussed so far. In front of theHoly Sepulchre, the angeland the women are depicted gesticulating towards a square shape on which is a centralcross in the middle of four L-, or gamma-shaped marks. Vikan has interpreted this as agold-embroidered hanging suspended in front of the entrance, and justified his readingwith quotes fromwritings of Egeria and the Piacenza pilgrimwhere fabulously rich textilesare described.65 However, I would suggest that the object being pointed at beyond thecancelli is something far more important than a hanging: it is the sacred stone of theResurrection, perhaps the four Ls alluding to the original marks of the tools on the stone.66

However for contemporary viewers, what was being pointed to as ‘life-giving’, andsuggested to—thanks to the arrangement of these four marks around the cross—may havebeen the book of the Gospels. In fact, the motif of the central cross framed by these fourmarks can be seen on the cover of the book held by Christ Pantocrator on a sixth-centuryicon from Mount Sinai, and the same bejewelled pattern is repeated on the gold gospelcovers from Monza, the Theca Persica of Queen Theodolinda.67 In an Insular context,perhaps unsurprisingly, we can discern it on the John Carpet page in the LindisfarneGospels and,68 combined with lozenges, on the binding of the books displayed in thecupboard of the Ezra page in the Codex Amiatinus.69 Osborne has discussed the patternregarding textiles and their painted imitations in Rome,70 and it can also be seen in themosaics of Ravenna.71 The same combination is reproduced on stone sculpture.72


These intriguing L- / gamma-shaped marks are known as gammadia. Their complexstory provides us with an interesting case-study with regards to iconography. On earlyChristian mosaics in Rome and Ravenna, for example, notched gammadia are shown onthe hems of garments, but we can observe many variations on their shapes, sometimes dueto insensitive restorations.73 Scholars have interpreted them as sacred patterns copiedfrom Jewish high priests’ vestments: Nibley, when discussing these, stated that theirmeaning was so secret and exclusive that their true significance eventually became lost;74

even for Jerome himself, despite his first-hand experience and interest in Jewish priestlygarments, their meaning was baffling, so that he could only describe them as having someunspecified symbolic and divine significance:

We have learned which garments are common to priests, which are special to the highpriests. If there is such sophistication over mere pots of clay, how much more for thetreasure housed within! Let us say first what we take from the Hebrews and thenspread the veil of spiritual understanding according to our custom.75

Archaeological finds at the 1960s excavation at Masada on the Dead Sea and other sitesbrought to light examples of textiles which were dated to before AD 73 and ‘as made andfirst used’.76 Whilst recognising some religious or ritualistic significance, and someprobable connections with burials, Welch and Foley admit that their significance remainsdisputed amongst scholars.77 As for their use, Yigael Yadin, the excavator of the Judeandesert caves on the north bank of the Nahal Hever, by comparing the textile finds therewith wall paintings at the Dura Europos synagogue, demonstrated that there were cleardifferences between male and female costumes, which showed the use of applied straightnotched bands for men and right-angled patterns with denticulated ends for women.78 Hetherefore noted what had been ‘an amusing development in early Christian art’: the misuseof gammadia applied tomen’s clothing, with the pattern eventually becomingwidely used,in Roman-Byzantine art, particularly on robes and altar cloths.79 If this take-over oficonography appears startling, we might consider how in more recent times the octagonal


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73 As an example, one could consider the great variety amongst those represented on the garbs ofthe Apostles processing around the dome of the Arian Baptistry, Ravenna (Deichmann, 1958:figs 251, 257–68). The gammadia on the Teaching Christ in Santa Pudenziana, Rome(Krautheimer 1980: 41, fig. 36) now resemble a TL rendered as a monogram.

74 Nibley, 1992; see also discussion in Mauskopf Deliyannis, 2010: 369 n. 23775 Jerome, Epistola 64 ad Fabiolam, AD 397: Didicimus, quae communia cum sacerdotibus, quae

specialia pontificis uestimenta sint, et, si tanta difficultas fuit in uasis fictilibus, quanta maiestaserit in thesauro, qui intrinsecus latet! dicamus prius, quod ab Hebraeis accepimus, et iuxtamorem nostrum spiritali postea intellegentiae uela pandamus. (PL 22: 607–22; trans. Author)

76 Welch and Foley, 1997: 25377 Welch and Foley, 1997: 25578 Yadin, 1971: 69–7679 Yadin, 1971: 76–79; Hachlili, 2009: 12. The Liber Pontificalis records the gift of an altar cloth

by Pope Benedict the Younger (684–685) to the Church of St Mary ad martirem ‘of purple witha cross and gammula and four gold-buttoned studs’ (Davis, 2000: 81).


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80 The pattern, framed by four gammadia, can be seen depicted on altar cloths on the mosaics inSant’ Apollinare in Classe and San Vitale, Ravenna (Deichmann, 1958: fig. 407; AngioliniMartinelli, 1997: 238, figs 441–44 ), and also on the golden segmentum on the lower edge ofthe shawl of Antonina, immediately to the right of Theodora in the procession in the mosaicsof San Vitale (AngioliniMartinelli, 1997: 237, fig. 440). The pattern on the shawl, which is alsowell-known from Sassanian and Coptic textiles, has been interpreted as a sign of hierarchy andas having cosmic significance (Kadar, 1989: 310).

81 As discussed in the blog: <http://www.templestudy.com/2008/09/08/the-seal-of-melchizedek-part-1/>, and following (accessed: 12 February 2012)

82 Lewis, 1980: 14183 See further, e.g. Lindisfarne Gospels, fols 27, 95, 139 (Alexander 1978: figs. 39, 46 and 33),

and forming corners in the Book of Kells on canon tables (fols 2v, 3r; Alexander, 1978: figs.236–37), and double corners (fols 27v, 32v; Alexander, 1978: figs 231, 243), as well ascounterbalancing the Chi-Rho (fol. 34r; Alexander, 1978: fig. 244)

84 Folio 210 (Backhouse, 1981: 56, fig. 34)85 Richardson, 198486 Not least in the computus, as seen from Bede’s The Reckoning of Time (Wallis, 1999); see also

the passage in Isidore’s Etymologia 3.4 (Lindsay, 1957: 1. sn)87 Leyerle, 1996: 120

pattern of the so-called ‘seal of Melchizedek’, an eight-pointed star formed by twointerlocking squares containing a circle,80 came to be enthusiastically adopted in theLatter-Day Saints’ Temple of San Diego, California, apparently endorsed by a casualremark by Hugh Nibley.81

However, despite being fundamentally a ‘mistake’, the success of the gammadia asa sacred symbol in early Christian art is undisputed, and in the Insular context, with whatLewis defined as the ‘initiated eye’,82 one may find several allusions to this motif,particularly in the framing of text on major decorated initial pages.83 We might also turnto the carpet page introducing the Gospel of John in the Lindisfarne Gospels (fol. 210),84

and consider how the central Greek cross becomes effectively four gammadia, whereas theTau crosses split into two of these motifs. It is debatable whether any of the original earlyChristian associations would have been intended: new ones are likely to have been created,perhaps built on a general, vague sense of ‘sacred’ and connections to the Holy Land. AsRichardson has eloquently argued,85 numbers, symbols and geometry have always playeda prominent role in early Christian Insular art and thought,86 but, as well as informingruminatio in Anglo-Saxon times, they could endlessly be evoked and expanded to suit newpurposes and ideas. One may wonder if the gnomon and the shadow it casts on a sundial,apart from informing of the passing of time and the liturgical hours, may also have calledto mind gammadia.

The two examples of the lozenge and the gammadia may serve to illustrate how,despite limitations and uncertainties, such iconographic detective work allows us to refineour understanding and our responsiveness and appreciation of the art of the time. Mostof all, they elucidate the route by which meaning evolves and becomes established, asLeyerle posits, ‘when accorded it by the viewer’,87 either when the original intentions are


entirely subverted, as in the case of the gammadia, or taken over, as in the case of thelozenge.

In thinking how this matters in our art historical approach, it is essential that in‘making histories’ we should try and retrieve and carefully attend to the voices behind theoriginal creation of art, of both the makers and the onlookers: they should be the first todirect our imagination—arguably, this is the primary role of iconography. However, aswe have seen, in the ever-shifting cultural background to object and viewer and theirdynamic interaction, we should be prepared to expect that meaning does not ever remainstatic. In trying to explain the driving forces by which meaning is extended, it is helpful toconsider Elsner’s recent exploration of ekphrasis as the construction of persuasive andwell-founded arguments out of objects. He has discussed how occasionally ourverbalisation requires us consciously to make recourse to ‘the intellectually dubious’,rather than to stick to accurate historicism.88 It is also illuminating to reflect on whatCynthya Hahn has described as the ‘making’ of the treasury in Monza, ultimately as‘stories that both construct and draw together their community’.89 These discussions helpus to reflect on how meanings are actively constructed and modified, whether throughshared ekphrasis, manipulative presentation or reverent ruminatio. Iconography thereforeneeds to be equally responsive and dynamic.


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88 Elsner, 2010: 2689 Hahn, 2005: 9–17


Lies, damned Lies and Iconography

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